The Case for Eliminating Fines on Overdue Library Books | Hacker News Reader

The Case for Eliminating Fines on Overdue Library Books

citylab.com

50 pointsdanso47 comments

It seems to me like the symbolic value of children's book late fees vastly outweighs any actual monetary incentives or benefits to the library. They're a lesson to kids that, yes, it's bad to break rules, but you don't have to feel anxious and guilty about it forever--if you make up for what you did by paying the fine, you're forgiven.

For this to work, though, the library has to walk a very thin line. The fines have to be large enough to feel significant to a child (setting them at $.01 would send the wrong message for sure), but also small enough that they'd never actually cause problems for a family trying to pay them. I don't know if it's possible to achieve this, especially in places with high income inequality.

They can do this by adding a cap. Say max $0.50 fine per book, and max $10 per account.

Then you are motivated to return the book, but if you mess up the fine is not so high as to be ruinous.

How does this work for a 7 year old, with no income of their own and no means of transportation?

Also, some folks are poor and simply could not afford the $10 without taking away from vital things, like food and electricity.

Waive the fine if someone writes a note saying please erase my fine?

The knowledge that you can write a note like that, and the willingness to do it, are very strongly class-based.

You could put a poster saying it's the policy and maybe limiting it to say $5. The number of wealthy willing to write a letter to get off say a $2 fine would be small but it might be good for kids worried about their pocket money etc.

Yes, but with no means of transportation, how does the seven-year-old get the library book in the first place?

Not that I think we should impose punitive fines on those who would have to scrimp to pay them.

I was able to walk to the library as a child, actually - plus some places have Bookmobiles. There were also libraries at schools.

A kid's experience might vary with all of these, though: I also lived a 5-minute drive from a place with no free public libraries with the exception of a school.

The bigger issue, to me, is that children have no source of income and aren't always in control of getting books back on time. Some families won't pay a $.10 fine. Some families won't make sure the child physically gets to the library to return books.

If they are going to have fines, the least they can do is have ways the children can get around actually paying fines, but I also think it is more prudent to simply work around the fines and encourage folks to read and have access to library tools instead.

Sometimes I put off reading a book I've checked out—but also don't want to return it until I have read it—and so I am quite likely to end up accruing a late fee on any books I check out.

Given this, and given that I also know the price of just buying the book to begin with, I usually feel a "prediction of regret" that I'll wish I'd have just bought the book, instead of spending so much on just "renting" a used copy. This stops me from using the library, most of the time.

That's probably for the best, I guess?

There's probably some optimum stopping-point where a book that I've taken out from the library should be returned (although I'm not "done" with it yet—sometimes that's even true!), and replaced with a purchased copy, to sit there in my reading queue in the borrowed copy's stead.

Maybe you could make a service out of recognizing that optimum stopping-point. Rent-to-own books, where you hold onto the old one for three weeks and then, if you liked it, you can pay the difference to trade it in for a fresh new copy to keep?

Many libraries will let you renew checked out books online, without cost, as long as nobody has placed a hold on it in the meantime. For me, that would work ok --- if I had put off reading it, but someone else wanted to, I'd get it back right away; but if I could renew it, then I'd be ok putting it off a little more.

Even those that don't will usually allow you to return it at the desk, and check it right back out, to reset the renewal cap.

The library has a limited number of books, and it’s not fair to the other users to keep books parked at your house. Even if you intend to read them eventually.

Charity shop (thrift store)?

A book costs me 50p / £1 to buy, can take as long as I want to read it, then donate it back when finished.

The book selection at generic charity shops is generally extremely poor, and not by accident. Charity shops are too limited in space to stock every book that gets donated, so any book that isn't deemed likely to sell is dumped in the trash. This leaves them with exclusively lowest-common-denominator books.

Source: volunteered in a charity shop briefly. Saw them throw away a copy of Le Morte d'Arthur, while anything by Danielle Steel automatically went on the shelf even if there were three copies of it already. Don't donate your books to charity shops, folks!

I like schemes where positive behaviour is directly linked to counter negative behaviour.

Let's first introduce a soft cap and hard cap. If you have fines accrued it doesn't prevent you from borrowing books but the fines are still kept in record, and you owe to the library. You can pay the fines, or keep them on the record but if the total fines reach, say $10, then also borrowing will eventually be denied. Maybe the number of books you could borrow would be limited earlier: if you have unpaid fines pending, you can only have one or two books out for loan at any given time.

Now, here's the idea: what if upon returning a book a small amount would be subtracted from the accrued fine?

If you racked up a few dollars of fines for a good reason or a bad reason, you could pay those off merely by using the library properly, i.e. borrowing books and returning them. Kids could easily afford this sort of "payment".

There could be a limit that by returning books you can only subtract a certain amount off the fine during one week or one month, but basically the scheme would be designed so that anyone who kept using the library regularly would be bound to clear out their fines in some definite time. It's like club card discounts but only applied to late return fines.

What if someone just borrows a lot of books and returns them only to erase their fines? If that's what gets these people to come back to a library repeatedly, if for nothing else than to return books they've borrowed to get their fines erased then that's not a bad outcome either.

The problem with charging a fine is that by providing a mechanism for penance it reduces the pressure for those people who are prepared to pay fines to actually return the books on time.

The more affluent therefore work under different rules than the less well off, and can be "justified" in keeping books longer than they otherwise should. This probably explains why in the article they found a reduction in late returns when they abolished the fines.

It sure seems to me that wealthy people would be smart enough with their money to never pay a fine for a late library book. Unless they really are the type of wealthy people that always pay more for convenience, but then, why would those types be slumming around the library? They'd surely just buy books on Amazon.

Libraries can sometimes be much better for book discovery than the web.

You can pick up books and skim through as much as you want on the spot. You can go to a shelf and see many of an author’s books next to each-other, or see many books about the same topic.

But how do you keep people from abusing the service? When there are no consequences people tend to abuse it.

I used to buy books with the idea that eventually I would read them. I have a bookcase of books that I've yet to read but every time I borrow a book from the library I read it within the allotted time. To me fines and deadlines are a nice nudge to read the book.

The article says there can be consequences.

> Under Chicago Public Library’s new policy, a checked out item will automatically be renewed 15 times as long as there are no holds on it. Afterwards, the item will be marked lost, and the library will charge the borrower its market value, though charges will be cleared as long as the borrower returns it.

Seems totally reasonable, although perhaps 15 times seems a bit generous.

After the book's due, return the book, or else you can't check out any new ones.

This is all well and good if nobody else wants the book.

But if I check out a book, and you place a hold on it, and I fail to return it, that's not OK.

Now you don't know whether to wait for the book to be returned, or to just go buy it because I can't get around to returning it.

I'm guessing once it is marked as lost the library may re-buy it.

A lot of books in libraries can't be repurchased easily. Personally, I've had two books I've placed on hold turn up lost recently and they're both out of print. Considering both books are over $300 on used book sites, I rather doubt that they were lost.

I used ILL to read a copy of Neal Stephenson's "The Big U" before it was reprinted, when used copies were going for $100s on eBay.

Bear in mind though that most library books can be repurchased easily, and sales like this are independent of late fines, so doesn't affect the issue at hand.

That was the policy in my university library (Texas A&M).

It works great.

The only thing that would be awesome on top of that is the ability to get a notification when someone wants to check out the book that I'm holding.

Like a Texas A&M's recall request? - https://library.tamu.edu/services/service_request_forms/reca...

Did you read the article? There are consequences, they just don’t involve fines accruing over time.

If your grift is to take a book from the library in the city you live in and never return it, I don’t think you are going get very far.

I live in a city that got rid of fines a couple years ago after they were collecting about seventy cents for ever dollar they spent trying to collect fines. For some reason people really want this to be a bad idea and I’m not sure why.

> For some reason people really want this to be a bad idea and I’m not sure why.

We just voted on a library levy renewal in Seattle and the (comparatively very small) part of the levy that would pay to remove library fines was basically all anyone talked about. A small chunk of the talking points centered around whether fines should be a deterrent or if they have a purpose. But the majority? Boiled down to some variant of "people will get away with stealing library books" / "what if homeless people get free books and aren't punished for not being like the rest of us and returning books?"

I come down on "library fines are not beneficial to what libraries are supposed to do," for what it's worth, and voted yes on the levy in large part so that fines would be done away with.

I was pleasantly surprised when the Dallas public library didn’t have late fees I was used to as a kid.

They allow 99 auto-renewals which seems absurd. Unfortunately you don’t get an alert when a hold is in place you get an alert letting you know the book is due.

We did lose a book. And there is a restocking fee UNLESS you provide a new mint condition book, ANY book, to replace it.

The librarian was thoroughly confused when I insisted on paying the fee so I could check out.

Only “con” is I no longer have a real excuse for my kids to return their books so I instead just have to be honest that I don’t want to read the same Curious George story for the 100th time.

One thing i was very surprised coming from Korea is that you had to pay fines if your book is overdue. I've never experienced or heard of such things in Korea. What we do instead is not allowing you to borrow books for the amount of days it has been overdue.

Our library system doesn't have fines for any children's materials. As far as I know there haven't been any issues with this policy.

Libraries in Ireland eliminated late fees for overdue books early this year[1]. I wouldn't say it has made any significant difference to me, since the borrowing periods are already very generous. But if it does encourage more reading in this day and age of audio visual content, why not?

Times are changing, just a couple of years ago, most new acquaintances and colleagues would ask me for book recommendations, these days most people ask me for podcast recommendations, and I don't listen to that many podcasts.

[1]: https://www.rte.ie/news/ireland/2019/0102/1019973-library-fi...

A nice side effect of this policy is that the library's storage capacity is expanded to include the homes of people with late books that don't have holds on them. I don't know whether storage capacity is scarce these days.

This is why I'm a big fan of Overdrive/Libby. I check out a lot of audiobooks and they get automatically returned after 21 days, so I don't have to worry about any late fees.

It works with multiple cards too! If you're ever in NYC, visit a NYPL branch. They are one of the few city library systems that give free cards to nonresidents (it does have to be renewed every 90 days, but has full borrowing privileges)

Surely I can't be the only one irked by the fact that they're bringing the concept of "copies" and "borrowing" to what are just bytes sitting on hard drives that can be copied and transmitted at 0 marginal cost?

I agree that it's a better user experience than the non-digital alternative, but I'd like to see digital books at libraries be available for free to anyone who wants it at any time, without any arbitrary restrictions whatsoever.

It’s even worse as publishers sell digital lending copies to libraries that cap out at fewer lends than a physical book would be good for, forcing repurchases! Most libraries are small and this policy prevents them from building up large digital collections over time.

The cost of a digital copy for libraries is also many multiples of the cost of a paper copy, which libraries purchase at normal retail prices. I talked with a local high school librarian who told me his library simply couldn't justify having ebooks as they could cost as much as $200 for licensing that still isn't perpetual.

> that cap out at fewer lends than a physical book would be good for

Oh yes - my favourite local library branch [1] is mostly volunteer-run and as such was the last one to get computerised lending, so any books older than ten years or so still have that paper slip in the back onto which the due date used to be stamped. Looking at those, quite a number of books (and not just the ultra-popular ones) would have already expired if they had been subject to the same lending caps as digital books, but in practice are mostly still in an okay (or even a bit better than just okay) condition that still looks good for quite some more lends.

On top of that, it seems that some publishers now use licenses that simply expire after a fixed term (two years or so!) regardless of the number of lends (compare https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20982315).

[1] A former US Army library in Germany that was donated to the city when that particular Army base was closed in the mid-90s and now effectively functions as a dedicated English language section of the regular city library.

Then your reading history goes to Amazon. Paper books provide privacy.

Also my library often has 10-20 copies of a book but only 2-3 "copies" of the intangible version.

> Paper books provide privacy.

Wasn't sneak n' peek on library records one of the sticking points of the Patriot Act?

doesn't matter if all your checkouts are emailed in the clear via hold notices and renewal reminders.

How will I force them to break a 20 for the vending machine without fines?

This is a bad idea. A library is supposed to be stocked with books so that patrons can indulge their curiosity browsing. People can't browse library books that are sitting in the homes of other people for months.

There is a sense of responsibility that goes away when you can keep books indefinitely. The example here is that the books will be automatically renewed up to 15 times and then the borrower is charged (until they return the book). I get that these small fines can be a burden to lower income folks. I suspect that there will be a ton of books that are never returned and borrowers will be charged and they will feel that same burden. Yes, this is contrary to what the 1983 study in the article states. I'd like to see a recent study - perhaps a follow up in a year in Chicago.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com